Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Had the pleasure of seeing Austra this year during SXSW @ Cheer Up Charlie's where WE ARE TRIBE Vintage Clothing had set up shop for the week. These ladies truly have a magical presence that was made know even before I heard them perform. WE ARE TRIBE and Magnolia Family Vintage were proud to provide a few vintage pieces for the ladies before they went on stage for the evening.

Japanese keyboardist and innovator in the field of music therapy, Fumio Miyashita has created Meditation, an album that fuels the healing mechanism of the body, mind and spirit. It is, in short, a harmonic convergence brought to its highest and best use. The repetitive sounds on his compositions are perpetuated by nature sounds. The combination is wholly organic-sounding and soothing. The music is slow and rhythmic, echoing patterns used in nature and creating environments that promote feelings of well-being.

FUMIO MIYASHITA as a Music Therapist

A little stream, leaves rustling in the wind and the song of birds. Those natural sounds, which can heal us, are based on the refrain that takes a fluctuation of 1/f. Listening to the same music continuously is not boring and it can heal us. Also, the more natural the music, the better you can be healed with the full harmony of the sound Miyashita has been creating this kind of ‘Healing Music’ for about 24 years and he expressed this natural sound as an art when he started. He created the title ‘Healing Music’ (registered) while seeking the understanding of the principle of harmony in the Nature of the Oriental Philosophy and applied it to compose his own music. His originality derives from being a musician as well as a therapist. He is called a Music Therapist who understands the flow of the mind on the human body.

His creation of music after having studied the Oriental Philosophy and the Medical Science has developed to the study of ‘brain’ and also approach to ‘sleep’. The comfortable refrain of music can relax the ‘left brain’ and unravel the ‘right brain’ and maintain a good balance of the whole brain. And he has also approached the Melatonin which controls the timimng in the body, through his music The direction of his music coincides with the modern society which is withstanding the abuse of the ‘left brain’ and requires the creativity controlled by the ‘right brain’Actually, he has been holding concerts for ‘a nice and healthy sleep’ whereby the audience is provided with ‘good sleep’. This is important now that 20% of people in Japan have a sleep disorder, and 60,000 people have experienced ‘good sleep’ in the 7 years of his concert series. People who have had that experience talk about the refreshing feeling upon waking after the good sleep induced by his music. Miyashita suggests ‘Don't listen too intently, don't listen too deeply and just listen like water flowing’, so that you will be able to get a good ‘hHealing-Life’ by repeating the music with a low volume from waking to sleeping

FUMIO MIYASHITA's HEALING MUSIC has been produced in the riches of nature, called IIZUNA highlands at an attitude of some 1,250m, in Nagano prefecture where seems surrounded by a soft minus ion as if we are in the womb.

HEAL THE BRAIN

Our present world is called the left-brain society in which we put great emphasis on information processing. We are in a difficult situation of increasing the function of the human's right-brain that presides over all the creativity and imagination. This HEALING MUSIC created by FUMIO MIYASHITA removes the blockage of right-brain and gives the left-brain a rest by the efficacy of sound vibrations.
Surrounded by these sounds, you will experience feeling refreshed as if having a pleasant doze and/or awakened from the doze. Furthermore, it releases your imagination as wide as possible and gives you a chance to see certain pictures in your mind. The brain wave as listening to the healing music: BETA-waves indicating stress will be reduced, conversely ALPHA-waves at ease is activated at the same time; and THETA-waves in a hypnotic trance as well as DELTA-waves in a sound sleep could also be supplied. In other words, it creates a state that brain cells are revitalized while resting

Four Types of Brain Waves

[DELTA-wave] 0.5～ 3.5 Hz : is especially found in frontal lobe during sleep

[THETA-wave] 4.0～ 7.0 Hz : is found in frontal & side lobe as just fallen asleep or in a hypnotic trance

[ALPHA-wave] 8.0～13.0 Hz : is found in a state of relaxing or meditating

The owner of a sake (Japanese rice wine) factory had attended one of Fumio's healing workshops and decided that if the music was intended to make living beings feel good, he might just try it on the living yeast in his sake-making process. Sure enough, when the speakers were installed and Fumio's music played 24 hours a day, the yeast that once grew sporadically now grew uniformly. The sake won awards for its flavor and has since won the highest award, the gold medal, for its sweetness.

Close To Cucumbers

A Japanese farmer played Fumio's music in his greenhouse of cucumbers. In Japan, cucumbers are rated by number based on their flavor. The normal cucumber rating would be around a 4. The sweeter the cucumber, the higher the number. The farmer found that those cucumbers closest to the speakers playing Fumio's music in his greenhouse received higher ratings of between 5.5 and 7.

Guidance from Duji Kakisaka

A photographer friend was playing Fumio's music on a trip to a holy site called Tenkawa ("Heavenly River"). The head priest Guji Kakisaka of Tenkawa heard the music and felt an instant connection with it. He requested a meeting with Fumio. They eventually met and this brought about a pivotal change in Fumio's life. The two became very close, learning from each other. Gujisan advised Fumio to reside at Lizuna Mountain in Nagano Prefecture, coincidentally Fumio's hometown and birthplace. Fumio took the high priest's advice to return to Japan after residing in the United States. In his Nagano recording studio, Fumio continues his passion for creating peaceful music that touches people on an international level. Fumio composed the Olympic theme song which the city of Nagano presented in its successful bid to host the 1998 Winter Olympics.

Fumio has performed at benefit concerts supporting environmental and social consciousness and on behalf of AIDS victims, and will continue traveling to the world's holy places on his quest to provide healing music for the good of humankind and the natural world. Many Japanese attest to the therapeutic qualities of Fumio's music, including teachers noting that lesson plans are enhanced, and therapists stating that treatments are elevated.

Long ago, people lived in a different environment. Nature provided a rich symphonic backdrop: the melodic singing of birds; the gentle rustling of the leaves in the trees; the trickling of streams. As a respite from the complexity and accelerated pace of today's man-made environments, Fumio's music creates a way to regain that natural state. Fumio composes in a slow rhythmic pattern echoing the harmonious essence of nature's vibrational energy.

Just as on the acupuncture chart every point of the body is represented on the ear, Fumio uses tone, pulse, pitch, rhythm, and chords to create an environment that promotes a feeling of well-being. Listening to Fumio's music can be a rejuvenating and revitalizing experience and goes well with meditation, visualization, study, work and sleep.